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Elsbeth Pancrazi

The hologram in the goggles

was calling me baby
One of us had put away the murphy bed already
I saw myself try to explain my name
into your shoulder
but I was changing too, I was sleeping naked
as the super-charged air
against my body’s every plane
warmed by its toxic, molecule-moving touch
I knew you would have strongly minded
but you didn’t say
—bypassed the station by the river
—bypassed spring
You liked my hair like this
and you’d confused me and
you both confused me now
but I was living out the facts
smoothing the coverlet against the bed
arranging laundry on a line through our apartment
like shadows in a field, files in a drawer
baseball in an almanac, naked in bed
while the ultra-magnetic swarm of superfood pollens
entered my body’s every alcove
I sounded my surroundings for anger but found none
I flexed my full-body data glove
It had molded to me soundly
You had liked my lower back, my collar
—acupuncture of information
The hologram in the goggles
was eating white asparagus
The missing limbs had all been rendered in
and told the time like sundials
I had a recipe question for the new you
should I call you you?
—pond sewn with many scattered swans
You were sleeping so sweetly
I wanted to wake you
to tell you I was acclimating to the dream
lying like the hanged man
drawn upside down, a light summer quilt

Elsbeth Pancrazi studied poetry at Vassar College and New York University. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her poems and book reviews can be found on BOMBlog, Bookslut, Boog City Reader, Forklift, Ohio, H_ngm_n, No, Dear, Paperbag and elsewhere in print and on the web.